Purifying the Land of the Pure

When Pakistan was created in 1947, the country sought to provide a new homeland for South Asia’s Muslims, the largest religious minority in the subcontinent at the time. At first, Pakistan welcomed all its new citizens, Muslim and non-Muslim alike; its inclusivity was important, since 23 per cent of Pakistan’s population before independence was non-Muslim. Today, however, non-Muslims comprise a mere 3 per cent of the population, and in recent years all except those following an exclusivist version of Sunni Islam have been subjected to increasing levels of persecution and violence. In Purifying the Land of the Pure, Farahnaz Ispahani shows how the process of creating an Islamic state began soon after Independence, but it was General Zia-ul-Haq’s military regime that started promoting an intolerant version of Sunni Islam at the expense of other denominations. Ispahani stresses how the contradictions at the heart of the Pakistani state-building project have fuelled intolerance. This revised edition, including a new preface and a new chapter, brings the story of the persecution of religious minorities in Pakistan up to date.

Farahnaz Ispahani has been a leading voice for women and religious minorities in Pakistan for the past twenty-five years, first as a journalist, then as a member of Pakistan’s National Assembly, and most recently as a scholar based in the United States. As advocate of Pakistan’s return to democracy during the military regime of Pervez Musharraf, she served as a spokesperson and international media coordinator for the Pakistan Peoples Party, working alongside the late Benazir Bhutto. During her tenure in Parliament (2008-2012), she was a member of the Foreign Affairs and Human Rights Committees and of the Women’s Parliamentary Caucus. In 2013-2014, she served as a Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. In 2012, she was listed among Foreign Policy magazine’s Top 100 Global Thinkers, as well as Newsweek Pakistan’s Top 100 Women Who Matter.